Gauri Lankesh killing: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah assured Lankesh's family that three police teams were constituted to probe the killing and that the police have been asked to get in touch with the Maharashtra counterparts who are investigation the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.

On Tuesday, former MoS for I&B at the Centre, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore expressed sadness at Lankesh’s murder.

“Terrible news from Bengaluru about the heinous murder of Gauri Lankesh. I condemn all acts of violence against journalists,” he said. Rathore currently is in charge of the sports and youth affairs ministry in the Narendra Modi-led government.

Lankesh, the editor of Kannada weekly Lankesh Patrike, was shot dead Tuesday by unidentified men outside her home in Bengaluru. Four bullets were pumped into her body as she stepped outside her car in front of her home in Bengaluru west around 8 pm. Neighbours found the journalist lying in a pool of blood on her porch barely a metre away from the locked verandah to her home.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah assured Lankesh’s family that three police teams were constituted to probe the killing and that the police have been asked to get in touch with the Maharashtra counterparts who are investigation the killing of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar.

Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy said: “It will not be appropriate for me to make any comments as to who is behind the incident. It could be for personal reasons or for ideological reasons.”

Shivasundar, a longtime journalist colleague of Gauri Lankesh, told the Indian Express, “The shots were fired from a very close range inside the compound of the house. She had been living alone in recent days after her elderly mother moved to her sister’s house.”